John O'Shea insists Wayne Rooney's absence for Manchester United's derby defeat on Sunday is no excuse.

"Wayne can lift players around him," he told MUTV. "He is infectious with his work rate. He gets the crowd buzzing.

"But we were missing other players as well. The team we had out was good enough to win that game. You can always say we're missing this player, or that player. But we had the squad to cope. We've got so many talented players that you hoped one player would conjure something. It just didn't happen at all for us."

Whilst not wanting to gloss of one of the most disappointing results of the 2007/08 calendar, O'Shea insists the squad cannot afford to wallow in pity.

"We're all just waiting for the next game to come around," he added. "We're still in a great position in three competitions. We can't just forget a disappointing result, especially against our city rivals, but we do have a lot to be positive about. We've got to make sure we bounce back straight away and go on a long winning run."